Page 5736 – Christianity Today (2024)

The evangelical community, in a sense, has been much better known for the matters it has opposed than for its positive perspectives and initiatives. In some quarters, this reputation is so bad that evangelicals are written off as reactionaries. They are thought to be contributing little or nothing to cultural development or the evolution of human thought.

The picture has been slowly changing for a generation but the pity is that too many evangelicals are content to carry this reputation. They prefer simply to react to the bad and thus accent the negative, rather than pressing for the good that will keep the bad from happening.

One of the results of reacting negatively rather than leading positively is that evangelicals talk more to themselves than to others. Even though theoretically they assign great priority to the Church’s evangelistic responsibility, true outreach to the unbeliever is in practice often subordinated to feeding the sheep.

John Conlan, a devout and eloquent evangelical congressman from Arizona, has been pleading with his fellow believers to get involved. His lament is that evangelical thought has lost out too many times out of simple default. He is a staunch Republican conservative who places great importance on the individual citizen’s responsibility. In a fiery speech last month to the joint convention of the National Association of Evangelicals and National Religious Broadcasters he urged believers to make their presence known and felt.

Some at the convention felt Conlan set a new tone and that there may be perceptible and positive outward movement by the evangelical community. One illustration of this was the rejection of an anti-obscenity resolution of a traditional sort by the NRB executive committee. The feeling apparently prevailed that the nation’s moral malaise must be tackled by affirmative action that probes deeper and touches the basic issues. NRB Executive Secretary Ben Armstrong said that the vote symbolized a switch from a defensive stance to a strategy of offense.

The question must than be raised whether such evangelical initiative calls for the creation of a power bloc of a political nature. Senator Mark Hatfield pleaded with the convention to resist the notion of a Christian party or platform. While those who would favor such a course are more than a few, the disparate political views of evangelicals make such an outcome highly unlikely. For such a time as this, it is probably enough to campaign evangelically for integrity and good stewardship, and let the chips fall where they may.

Evangelicals have always been an unwieldy community anyhow because of their many differences. There is one area of conflict, however, that is currently beginning to overshadow the rest: the principle of biblical inerrancy. Francis Schaeffer, who regards this as the watershed issue, told the closing joint session that evangelicals must draw the line there with love and tears, even if it results in a cleavage in their ranks.

Schaeffer’s point is well taken. It matters little what evangelicals say and do if the foundation of their authority is compromised. There is no point in trying to exhibit unity when there is serious disagreement as to the accuracy of the Word. Schaeffer in a way was throwing down the gauntlet, but in another way he was asking evangelicals to face up to reality. The sooner this is done the less grief there will be in the end.

What a marvelous thing it would be if during America’s Bicentennial evangelicals were to be found translating doctrine into deed as never before! What a blessing if during this presidential-election year this would result in a revival of biblical values based on an infallible Word amidst a spirit of evangelical togetherness. It is never easy to deal with evil, but the obligation to do so faces every generation. In our present day, we are ever more conscious of the pervasiveness of evil, and we have ever more reason to fear its consequences. But God has supplied us with adequate resources to do as much as he wants done, and all he asks is that we use them to the full.

Will The New Page Read Better?

Members of the National Council of Churches’ governing board started writing a new page of its history at their spring meeting in Atlanta. (See News, page 41.) It was the first meeting of the 1976–78 triennium, and for some denominational representatives it was a first as an NCC policy maker. It was also the first board meeting for the new officers, led by President William P. Thompson.

Two among the actions might point to better things to come. One was the board’s refusal to reduce its quorum from 40 to 25 per cent. The other was approval of a policy statement on evangelism.

Early in the meeting President Thompson reminded the board of the difficulty in keeping a quorum. To let a “marginal group” conduct important business, he warned, would not be fair to the millions of church members represented.

Overall size of the governing board was reduced from the previous triennium, so that about 240 representatives were eligible to vote in Atlanta. With some additions scheduled before the next meeting in October, about 250 will be on the rolls then.

Attendance at the first meeting of this triennium was not untypical of other meetings in recent history. Only 145 representatives were enrolled by the end of the first day of the three-day session. An even smaller number actually voted on important issues. The largest vote counted added up to 128. Thus, barely over half decided the business of the council. Furthermore, had there been a close vote on any question, just over 20 per cent of the delegates could have made policy for Thompson’s millions of church members.

The board was properly cautious in not reducing the quorum beyond the already-low 40 per cent. Robert Marshall, president of the Lutheran Church in America, pointed out that the proposed constitutional amendment would have allowed a mere 13 per cent to control the outcome of contested issues. He spoke of the need to speak from strength instead of weakness.

Denominations part of the NCC can back up their board members in this triennium by making sure they to combat the impression that the few decide for the many.

The Atlanta policy statement on evangelism, first in the NCC’s quarter century of existence, deserves study. Although it avoids defining evangelism, it does at least acknowledge that calling people to faith in Christ is “a primary function” of the church. This is a salutary word, especially for those congregations and denominations that have shown little evidence in recent years that they consider it a function at all, much less the primary one.

In this triennium the governing board has many opportunities to show that it was sincere when it approved the evangelism statement. It can insist that more attention be given to the subject in council programs and materials produced. It can appropriate enough money from its discretionary funds (and raise designated funds) to support at least one full-time executive in this area. It can elect to other executive positions, whether in the areas of relief, education or communications, persons with a demonstrated interest in leading people to Christ.

If the NCC’s new board and officers provide the kind of constructive leadership needed in this three-year term, it will be a bright, new page in American ecumenical history—something many members of the constituent communions will be waiting and hoping for.

A Wreath Of Ribbons

If the Minnesota snow is not too deep, a moving van will roll away from Dr. and Mrs. Sherwood Wirt’s Minneapolis home at the end of this month, heading for a sunny spot in their beloved California. After more than seventeen years, the Wirts are going back home. It would be less than accurate to say they are retiring since no one expects the founding editor of Decision and his wife to do that. They will probably be doing more writing in the sunshine than they ever did in the cold northland.

From his editor’s desk at Decision, Sherwood Wirt has made immense contributions to the cause of evangelical Christianity. Not only has he led this publication to a place as the world’s most widely circulated Christian periodical, but he has also set a standard in editorial excellence. Through his writing he has popularized many of the forgotten giants of Christendom. He has given positive coverage to the members of the Billy Graham team, and to other evangelistic activity as well. He has pointed out some of the soft spots in the Church and has helped Christians think through crucial issues. Probably his most important contribution has been the discovery and encouragement of writers through the Decision Schools of Christian Writing and related endeavors. The schools have geared composers not only of prose but of poetry, which much communications study overlooks (Wirt himself has written poems of considerable merit).

We trust that after the moving van is unpacked he will continue this valuable work. Sending flowers might be inappropriate, so to the Wirts, here’s a wreath of ribbons for your typewriters.

Michael Polanyi

Michael Polanyi, Hungarian-born scientist who died last month at the age of 84, literally gave Christians much to think about. He laid the groundwork for a theory of knowledge that makes biblical principles more compelling for modern thinkers.

Polanyi won scholarly respect early in life for pioneering work in chemistry and medicine in Hungary as well as Germany. He moved to England in 1933 in protest against the Nazis, whose designs upon the world apparently taught him some things about values. Most of his time in later years was spent combating the notion that a narrowly conceived, scientistic outlook was adequate for human well-being.

Polanyi said little about specific religious beliefs—either his own or others’. He showed no signs, for example, of sensing any special reality in divine revelation. He simply concentrated on shaping an epistemology that would avoid the extremes of empiricism as well as existentialism. Most philosophers today are found in one or the other of these schools and they have not shown a great deal of interest in Polanyi. Some Christian theoreticians, however, see substantial possibilities in Polanyi’s work.

Dr. Jerry Gill drew extensively from Polanyi in The Possibility of Religious Knowledge. Gill credits Polanyi with undermining the fact-value dichotomy, with its built-in hostility toward the tenets of Christianity, by his acceptance of the Augustinian thesis that faith is at the basis of the rational process. Also religiously important is Polanyi’s stress on knowing by doing.

The challenge left by Pilanyi is that Christian intellectual inquiry can bear fruit to the glory of God, and prove that there is more to Christianity than meets the modern eye, which is so intensely conditioned by its amazement at scientific progress.

Ousting The Abrahams

Tiny Albania now has a new claim to fame. It has joined the list of countries taking away one of the most personal and private possessions of its citizens: their names. Henceforth, Albanians will be known by designations that mirror the state’s ambitions and priorities.

The new edict is regarded as an attempt by the little Adriatic country’s communist government to squelch religious expression. Christians and Muslims have been under the gun in this officially atheist nation, and open profession of any faith has been unthinkable. The stiffest penalties await those speaking out for any religion, or distributing religious literature.

Albania’s rulers must have been worried that these repressive measures were not effective enough. After all, someone named Abraham, or Ruth, or Mark might someday wonder where his name came from! And that could lead to a time-consuming search for a Bible or other religious literature. In the process, the unfortunately named Albanian might absorb some of the teachings of the outlawed book. That result, in the view of the government, would be very bad.

Right they are! The Bible is a very dangerous book for dictators. Hitler knew it, and so did many other totalitarian rulers. If they are to remain in power, repressing liberties and keeping their subjects ignorant, they should use every means possible to keep the Bible out of the hands of their people.

They are wrong, though, if they think any such ridiculous action will keep God out of Albania. No matter what they do, he will somehow have his witness. Some overzealous bureaucrat, trying hard to please the party bosses, may decide to change his own name to the equivalent of “No-Bible Jones.” Just think what a problem that will cause when all the while he thinks he is solving problems.

Belief That Does Not Go Far Enough

The events leading up to the raising of Lazarus from the dead, reported by John in chapter eleven of his gospel, reveal a strong belief in the power of Christ, but a belief that does not go far enough.

Lazarus of Bethany and his sisters Mary and Martha were special friends of our Lord. When Lazarus became gravely ill, the sisters sent word to Jesus in the obvious expectation that he would come and heal him (v.3).

Jesus eventually made his way toward Bethany, Martha learned of his approach, went out to meet him, and affirmed her belief in his power to heal—had he only arrived in time (v.21). Perhaps realizing a tone of bitterness and complaint in her voice, she quickly adds, “Even now I know that whatever you ask from God, God will give you (v.22).” But she is unprepared for Jesus’ announcement that he will return Lazarus to life; she supposes he is speaking of the general resurrection (vv. 23, 24). Martha readily believes that Jesus is able to delay death but does not recognize that he can overcome it, even though she does confess him as the Christ, the Son of God (v.27).

Then it is Mary’s turn to go to Jesus; she, too, confesses her faith in his power, up to a point, and then breaks down in tears (vv. 32, 33). Mourners who accompanied her express their perplexity that one could restore sight to the blind, yet not keep a close friend from dying (v.37).

Apparently nobody expected that he who made blind eyes to see could, when it was the Father’s will, make a dead body live again. All believed, but their belief did not go far enough.

How often is that the case with modern believers? We have believed in Jesus Christ for salvation; we believe in his power to accomplish many things familiar to us; but we do not go far enough in believing that because he is all powerful he can do far more than we are accustomed to. Admittedly only rarely did the Lord bring dead people back to physical life, but are we not too quick to use that as an excuse for unbelief in the fullness of his power?

But unbelief may also take an opposite direction, namely in those who are too eager to see God do the spectacular. Such believers forget that the main point of the raising of Lazarus was not the extraordinary display of power. Jesus himself tells us “this sickness is … for the glory of god (v.4),” so that men may believe that he comes from the Father (v.42), and that all who believe in him, even though they suffer physical death, will nevertheless have eternal life (vv. 25, 26). It is indeed paradoxical that one of the hindrances to full belief in our time might be preoccupation with the desire to see God do the spectacular, and therefore miss out on his will to work in quieter ways.

Whether one’s particular tendency is not to believe that God is all powerful, or to restrict his power to extraordinary displays, the result is the same: belief that does not go far enough.

‘She’S Another Kathryn Kuhlman’

Kathryn Kuhlman, well-known American evangelist and healer, died on February 20. According to her close friend, Reverend Ralph Wilkerson, pastor of the Melodyland Christian Center in Anaheim, California, some poeple are already hustling to become the “second Kathryn Kuhlman.”

In the Los Angeles Times, Ralph was quoted as saying, “A famous lady evangelist is already saying, ‘I’ve got her (Kuhlman’s) mantle.’ It’s ridiculous.”

Ralph’s right. It is ridiculous. But it’s not unusual. There’s an evangelist running around today whose publicist (who was Philip’s publicist?) calls him “the new Billy Graham.” They’ve taken Billy’s mantle and he’s not even dead.

And I’m sure there are “little Oral Robertses,” “young Bill Gothards,” “new Norman Vincent Peales,” and freshly squeezed Anita Bryants dotting the landscape. It’s ridiculous, but it’s not new.

In the church at Ephesus, I’m convinced there were young aggressive go-getters who saw themselves as “new Pauls.” And throughout history there have been those (deranged and otherwise) who have considered themselves the Messiah.

I wonder when we’ll learn to be ourselves in the Body of Christ. Just us. Not another Peale or Paul. Not another Calvin or Kuhlman. Just the real Arnold Pepper. Or the authentic Nancy Justice.

And I wonder when we’ll accept people as they are instead of saying, “He’s just like Somebody” or “She’s the new Whatchamacallit.”

But then who am I to talk. I can’t even be me. I’ve got to be “another Eutychus.” Where is Ralph Wilkerson when I need him?

EUTYCHUS VII

Sexism Dispelled

I was the co-ordinator of the Christian Arts Festival at Westminster Seminary and am writing on behalf of the Arts Committee to remark on Miss Forbes’s report, “Affirming the Arts (The Refiner’s Fire, Feb. 13)”. We were disturbed by her comments on our “sexism in action.” Her criticism simply had no grounds. If she had done more careful research she would have learned [that] there were in fact two seminars led by women, drama and poetry (Miss Forbes cites only one). We invited the dramatist and we welcomed the poet the moment she made herself known to us. There was a third woman who assisted in the film/ discussion workshop. Another woman, a lecturer at the Boston Museum of Fine Arts, declined our invitation to give a major lecture in her field. Two women accepted our invitation to do Japanese flower arrangement for the Festival. By far the majority of those who displayed in our gallery were women. And finally, if we exclude the Westminster Choir, half of our evening performers (of whom Miss Forbes was one) were women. Rockledge, Pa.

CHARLES DREW

Focus Extended

I have just this day discovered the January 30 issue and wish to express my appreciation for the series on the Black Church. I am aware that this is not the first mention of the Black Church in the magazine but the particular focus of this series seems to extend the perspectives considerably.… Congratulations on this special issue. I trust that this is but the beginning of a more representative perspective of the Spirit’s work.…

WILLIAM E. PANNELL

Fuller Theological Seminary

Pasadena, Calif.

Graceless About Grace

Since I do not regularly read your magazine, I am indebted to one of my students, who previously was one of John Warwick Montgomery’s students, for calling my attention to Montgomery’s account of our nine month old conversation in your issue of January 30, somewhat grandiosely entitled “Encounter in Florence” (Current Religious Thought). I could ignore it, just as I had almost forgotten the original conversation, if Montgomery hadn’t used his account as an occasion not only to ridicule me (though he allows me to remain anonymous), but also to suggest the theological incompetence of the entire Garrett-Evangelical faculty.…

As I recall the occasion, my daughter and I had gone to the only sitting room in our pensione to read, because my younger children were retiring in our rooms. Shortly thereafter Montgomery assembled his travel group in the same room and announced his lecture. He invited all who didn’t wish to hear it to leave. Since there was no other place to go, we remained, and were rewarded with a well-spoken description of Savanarola and some questionable interpretations of Luther. I listened with one ear as I continued to read, making no attempt to dissimulate either activity, as Dr. Montgomery suggests.… I had not known that I had caught that much of his attention. Following his presentation, when we could go back to our own concerns, my daughter and I were conversing quietly about some of our reactions to what he had said. [He] overheard part of our conversation, introduced himself into it, conversed for about five minutes, and then left. We did not “all exit,” as he suggests, unless he considers himself “omnes.” He exited and I went back to my reading, almost forgetful of the conversation until your January 30th issue.

At no time did Montgomery inquire what the purpose of my sabbatical study was. If he had been sufficiently interested, he might have been saved from having to caricature me in his version of one of a “perennial band of sabbatical Fulbright professors.” But what is more dismaying is his willingness to quote a retired colleague from my faculty in order to insinuate that the entire faculty of which I am a part is theologically untutored and evangelical only by “pretension.” I am not sure of the context out of which Professor Philip Watson’s reported comment was ripped, but I must presume he was as incompletely quoted as was my part of the “dialogue” in Montgomery’s version of our meeting. I have observed politicians who debate with “empty chairs,” but I had not known Montgomery was a candidate for any office. In any case, his legalistic understanding of grace, and his graceless account of our conversation about grace, do not seem to qualify him very well under the Lutheran criteria he cites for the office of “theologian.” Maybe it is just as well he is such a good tour group leader.

JAMES E. WILL

Professor of Systematic Theology

Garrett-Evangelical

Theological Seminary

Evanston, Ill..

ERRATUM

A news item in the February 13 “World Scene” column should have stated that the West German church tax amounts to between 8 and 9 per cent of one’s income tax, not income.

Public television could not have chosen a better historical tale for this bicentennial and election year than that of the remarkable Adams family. “The Adams Chronicles,” spanning a century and a half of American history, certainly puts politics into proper perspective.

What with pleas from Thomas Jefferson and the republicans for a presidential candidate who can unite the country and cries from Alexander Hamilton and the federalists for someone with sound economic and foreign policy I became convinced that contemporary campaign speechwriters had copied our nation’s first politicians. The way in which the XYZ Affair was leaked to the public sounded uncomfortably familiar, as did the secret dealings of French and American ambassadors. As American Film noted in its cover story on the series, “In the course of the Watergate hearings no other figure in American history was quoted as often as John Adams, hard-bitten moralist that he was.”

The thirteen-part, $5.2 million series, now half over, not only informs us about our country’s birth but shows us how little politics has changed. Our founding fathers used Christianity for political gain just as some politicians do today. During the continental congress, for example, Ben Franklin wanted a certain pious clergyman to lead a meeting in prayer. His presence was good politics, even if his prayers were long and tedious. John Adams understood and agreed.

The series should go far in correcting the widespread idea that those men who formed our government did so from religious, if not specifically Christian,motivations. The faith of John Adams and his family (his wife Abigail was a minister’s daughter) is not strong or particularly Christian. As we see with the deaths of some of their children, the Adams family is plagued by fierce doubts about even the existence of God.

WNET in New York, which produced the chronicles, made sure that it was well researched. Writers checked the scripts with historians armed with over 300,000 pages of diaries, letters, and other papers. Not only are the scripts accurate, they also are meticulously and cleverly written. The writers depict real persons, not the cardboard characters from history books or classes. Textbook writers ought to take a cue from them.

George Grizzard’s powerful portrayal of John Adams grows and mellows as Adams ages. And the rest of the cast matches Gizzard’s fine acting. The technicians who taped the episodes and the persons who edited the tape give the series a feeling of flow and movement not often seen on television.

The people who shaped our nation struggled with ethical and spiritual issues, with political and personal problems. How much, wondered president John Adams, do the people have a right to know about the internal affairs of governing a nation? A week after that episode first aired Shana Alexander and James Kilpatrick on 60 Minutes’s “Point Counterpoint” wondered the same thing.

If you have not tuned in “The Adams Chronicles” do so before the series ends. Or, catch the reruns. There’s more to learn than a lesson in American history

CHERYL FORBES

Church Music—An Alabaster Box Or Mess Of Pottage?

Like everything else, church music is costing more these days, and it is more than ever important that we get our money’s worth. Professional church musicians complain that when budget decisions are left to non-musical laymen or ministers, this may not always happen.

The issue was dramatized recently by a news release from Utah that caused an unusual degree of anxiety among organists and pipe-organ builders. It seems that the leaders of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (Mormon) have decreed that all their new church buildings should contain only electronic organs. It is stipulated that a $4,000 to $5,500 instrument is good enough for a parish (“ward”) and an $8,300 to $9,300 organ is adequate for a diocesan (“stage”) “meeting house.” The directive explained that “economic differences in various wards and stakes should not determine the type or size of organs.… Simplicity is desired in all chapel furnishings, including the musical instruments.”

Perhaps the greatest affront to the dignity of church musicians is couched in the stated judgment that “relatively few persons are actually capable of distinguishing significant difference between the sounds of the two types of instruments” (electronic organs and pipe organs). Today’s ears may be dulled by urban noise and high-decibel rock music, and many people may honestly prefer the sounds of a “country guitar” to those of a symphony orchestra. Still, since when are decisions about a church’s architecture—or plumbing—or organ tone—based on whether most people “can tell the difference”?

The quality of electronic organs has improved tremendously in recent years, and with good acoustics some give a fair representation of pipe-organ tone. The cost of a good electronic organ will depend partly on the size of the room in which it is installed. Beyond that, the quality of sound is in direct relation to the expenditure. It is hard to believe that an adequate instrument could be purchased for a minimum of $4,000 or a maximum of $9,300. Triple those figures, and maybe … There is still room for debate on the question of ultimate cost. Pipe-organ components can be used over several generations. On the other hand, the science of electronics advances so rapidly that a ten-year-old electronic organ is probably obsolete.

The issue is clouded by the example the Mormons have set in their music broadcasts. It is inconceivable that the superb Tabernacle organ may one day be replaced by even the finest electronic instrument. Or should we guess that the excellence of the choir and organ music has more to do with public relations than with the aesthetics of worship? Is it churlish to suggest that some intolerable theology has passed unchallenged because of the delightful sounds of the famous Tabernacle Choir, accompanied by Alexander Schreiner or Frank Asper at the great organ?

Albeit, this is not the occasion for evangelicals to throw stones from inside glass houses! Too many of us have made the questionable decisions about church music budgets, crediting them to “our missionary vision.” In some churches a forty-year-old Hammond is still wheezing away, at considerable pitch-variance with the untuneable spinet piano. In others, the choir has no budget for new music and is thumbing through an outdated, dog-eared hymnal. A few groups have aspired to a professional ministry to develop the musical talents of members, but have been unwilling to support it adequately from the pocketbook.

It isn’t true that there are no funds for music. We hear rumors of a gospel singer who was paid $1,000 a week (plus expenses) to sing three songs on a church’s Sunday-morning national telecast. Many popular personalities are now booked by talent agencies, with high fees for appearances at sacred concerts, church banquets, and the like. Our local religious radio station regularly offers tickets, at up to $6 each, to hear “your favorite gospel musicians” in the 5,000-seat Convention Center.

Dr. Ray Robinson, president of Westminster Choir College and an old friend from Youth for Christ rally days, identifies this phenomenon as “religious entertainment” and suggests it is the legitimate offspring of the marriage of religion and show business. Some others are not quite so sure. Where does religion end and entertainment take over? At best, it is a sharing of Christian experience from sincere performer to dedicated listener. At worst, it may be a pseudo-religious happening that, like Esau’s “mess of pottage,” is highly palatable but is much too costly, mostly because it may supplant true worship.

I hope that I do not seem to be speaking in the same authoritarian spirit exhibited by our friends in Salt Lake City. One would hesitate to argue with the church that decides it cannot afford an expensive organ or a professional music ministry at the moment because of its commitment to preach the Gospel and feed the hungry worldwide. But it is well to remember Jesus’ answer to those who contended that the former harlot’s costly ointment should have been sold to help the poor, instead of being poured over his feet in extravagant love. Every congregation of redeemed sinners has the right to choose what its own “alabaster box” will contain. If even a small group of believers decide that a pipe organ is necessary to express their adoration, I say “Amen”—right on!

Admittedly, this is related to “taste” in church music, and someone will argue that one person’s alabaster box is another’s mess of pottage. Well, perhaps—but each of us should make sure which he is paying for. Like the biblical counterparts, one is costly self-indulgence and the other is sacrificial worship.

DONALD P. HUSTAD

Donald Hustad is V. V. Cooke Professor of Organ at Southern Baptist Seminary, Louisville, Kentucky.

First of Two Parts

Invocation

To LORD NARAYANA, to lotus-born BRAHMA, the Creator … to GOVINDA, ruler among the yogis, to his disciple; SHRI SHANKARACHARYA, … to the tradition of our MASTERS, I bow down.

… To the personified glory of the Lord, to SHANKARA, emancipator of the world, I bow down

To SHANKARACHARYA the redeemer, hailed as KRISHNA and BADARAYANA, to the commentator of the BRAHMA SUTRAS, I bow down.

To the glory of the Lord I bow down again and again, at whose door the whole galaxy of gods pray for perfection day and night.

Adorned with immeasurable glory, preceptor of the whole world, having bowed down to Him we gain fulfillment.

Skilled in dispelling the cloud of ignorance of the people, the gentle emancipator, BRAHMANANDA SARASVATI, the supreme teacher, full of brilliance, Him I bring to my awareness.

Offering the invocation to the lotus feet of SHRI GURU DEV, I bow down.…

Offering cloth to the lotus feet of SHRI GURU DEV, I bow down.…

Offering a flower to the lotus feet of SHRI GURU DEV, I bow down.

Offering incense to the lotus feet of SHRI GURU DEV, I bow down.…

Offering fruit to the lotus feet of SHRI GURU DEV, I bow down.…

Offering camphor light

White as camphor, kindness incarnate, the essence of creation garlanded with BRAHMAN, ever dwelling in the lotus of my heart, the creative impulse of cosmic life, to That, in the form of GURU DEV, I bow down.…

Offering a handful of flowers

GURU in the glory of BRAHMA, GURU in the glory of VISHNU, GURU in the glory of the great LORD SHIVA, GURU in the glory of the personified transcendental fullness of BRAHMAN, to Him, to SHRI GURU DEV adorned with glory, I bow down.

This translated excerpt of the hymn chanted in Sanscrit by the teacher during the initiation into Transcendental Meditation identifies the initiation as a traditional Hindu “puja” or worship ceremony. It is also apparent from this text that the particular Hindu tradition followed is that of Shankara, the ninth-century Hindu philosopher-reformer whose non-dualist doctrine of the unity of all being (monism) is perhaps the most widely held view of reality in modern Hinduism. The primary focus of worship, however, is not Shankara himself but his most recently acknowledged successor, the late Brahmananda Saraswati or Guru Dev.

Under the form of Guru Dev (whose pictured image is on the altar during the “puja”), the Hindu Trimurti of Brahma, Vishnu, And Shiva are worshipped as manifestations of the formless absolute, Brahman. Guru Dev is the dead master of Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, whose Transcendental Meditation is made available to would-be meditators only if they bring, in addition to the course fee, the flowers, fruit, and cloth (a handkerchief) offered to Guru Dev in the initiation ceremony. Novice meditators normally are also expected to join their teacher in kneeling before the image of Guru Dev in order to receive mantra, the secret Sanscrit word by means of which they are to meditate twice daily for twenty minutes. What the Bible designates as “others gods” (Brahma, Vishnu, Shiva) are worshiped in this ceremony, and the worshiper bows down to an image representing deity in the form of mortal man, the picture of Guru Dev. This means that initiation into TM requires formal involvement in violations of the First and Second Commandments.

Because few understand Sanscrit and because Maharishi and his teachers keep insisting that TM has nothing to do with religion, most meditators are ignorant of the full significance of the initiation ceremony required of them. Maharishi International University (MIU) professor Jonathan Shear says of the initiation ceremony that “as any teacher of the TM technique will tell you, it is not a religious ceremony at all. In no way does it involve religious belief.…” Professor Shear is well aware of the religious content of the ceremony. His statement is an attempt to mislead those who are ignorant of it. This is typical of the deception practiced by TM teachers in general; they deny what is apparent to all who understand the text of the hymn cited above, that TM at its core is a Hindu religious practice.

Although it has long been apparent that TM is a way to union with “God” or Brahman through the recitation of a mantra (mantrum yoga), the publication of the translated text of the “puja” (excerpted above) by the Spiritual Counterfeits Project of Berkeley Christian Coalition (formerly CWLF) makes it apparent that a system of devotion to guru and gods (bhakti yoga) is also integral to TM. The doctrinal aspect of Maharishi’s system of yoga is called Science of Creative Intelligence (SCI). SCI includes a restatement of quasi-scientific language of the postulates of Shankara’s monism: the unity of all being, the identity of the soul and the essence of being, and the place of yoga as the means to experience the identity of soul and “Being” (atman and Brahman). For the meditator who gains enlightenment by means of the knowledge of SCI and the practice of TM in “cosmic” or “God” consciousness, the final goal is that of traditional Hinduism, according to Maharishi’s writings. The “enlightened” man at death gains Moksha or “liberation” from the cycle of reincarnation as the soul rejoins the “bliss consciousness” of Brahman.

Maharishi’s teaching of TM conflicts with Christianity in its view of God, in its view of man, and in its view of the way to reach God. Maharishi does not acknowledge the personal God and Creator as supreme, and by accepting the monist postulate that “All is One” he denies the Creator-creature distinction fundamental to the biblical revelation of God. The highest being is held to be impersonal and is known in SCI as the “field of Creative Intelligence” rather than by its traditional Hindu name of Brahman. Maharishi views man not as a sinner helpless to save himself from God’s judgment but as an autonomous being capable of experiencing his own divinity. The way to experience man’s divinity is to take part in a system of works based on practices of meditation (TM) and devotion rather than to place faith, through God’s grace, in the atoning death of Jesus Christ for the sins of men.

By persistently denying the religious significance of TM and of its initiation ceremony, Maharishi has succeeded in expanding his movement rapidly in the United States, where he has had his greatest success, and around the world. In the United States alone, more than 700,000 people have been taught TM since 1965. Thirty thousand Americans are reportedly initiated into TM every month. The Student’s International Meditation Society (SIMS) of the Maharishi reportedly received $14 million during the fiscal year ending September 30, 1974. At the present rate of initiation, SIMS income from initiation fees alone would reach about $36 million a year.

Flexibility and growth are certainly hallmarks of Maharishi’s movement. Its official name of incorporation as a non-profit educational organization in California was changed in 1974 to World Plan Executive Council (WPEC). Other organizational names in prominent use are Student’s International Meditation Society (SIMS), International Meditation Society (IMS), American Foundation for the Science of Creative Intelligence (AFSCI), and Spiritual Regeneration Movement (SRM). Specialized fronts for taking TM to particular groups judged open to a missionary thrust may be generated overnight. Black TM Centers, Incorporated, for example, is a group formed especially to take TM to the black community.

The world-wide outreach of Maharishi’s missionary Hinduism, called simply the “World Plan,” has headquarters in Seelisberg, Switzerland. This ambitious plan has the purpose of making TM available to every person in the world. It calls for establishing 3,600 SCI teacher training centers around the world—one center for every million persons. The centers are to train one teacher of SCI for every 1,000 persons. In the United States the quota of 280 centers has been far surpassed; there are 370 World Plan centers. Six thousand Americans have been trained by Maharishi as TM teachers.

The seven substantive goals of the World Plan include these: “(5) To solve the problems of crime, drug abuse, and all behavior that brings unhappiness to the family of man. (6) To bring fulfillment to the economic aspirations of individuals and society. (7) To achieve the spiritual goals of mankind in this generation.” While Christians taking the realistic, biblical view of the fallen nature of man may be sure that such millenarian goals will not be attained before the Second Coming of Christ, they should not underestimate the attractiveness of such goals to those educated in a milieu dominated by secular humanism. The 1975 session of Congress, for example, saw Senator Mike Gravel (D-Alaska) introduce a measure (SR-64) that would put the U.S. Congress on record as affirming that all seven World Plan goals are attainable by means of Maharishi’s SCI. Other senators who have entered favorable statements about Maharishi’s programs in the Congressional Record include Adlai Stevenson III (D-Ill.) and John Tunney (D-Calif.). Ten U.S. senators and congressmen reportedly practice TM. Senator Charles Percy (R-Ill.) and Congressman Richard Nolan (D-Minn.) are two who publicly acknowledge the practice. Senator Tunney’s laudatory statement about Maharishi International University (MIU) in the Congressional Record serves as a kind of quasi-official imprimatur on the concluding pages of the MIU catalogue.

Maharishi International University (MIU) is a key element in fulfilling the World Plan. It occupies a 185-acre campus in Fairfield, Iowa, bought for $2.5 million in 1974. Faculty, students, and even the janitors practice TM. All students must qualify as teachers of TM before graduation. All courses are integrated by the monist world view of Shankara and by the experience of TM, which is held to verify Shankara’s teaching directly. Of the two doctoral programs listed in last year’s catalogue, one is in the Hindu Scriptures, the Vedas, while the other is in the “Psychophysiology of Evolving Consciousness.” This year 600 students are pursuing “enlightenment” at MIU. They are being formed into an elite band of missionaries committed to the worldwide spread of SCI and TM.

In its pursuit of governmental support for the World Plan, Maharishi’s World Plan Executive Council has been rewarded by expressions of official approval from several states and more than fifty cities. Maharishi has addressed the legislatures of Illinois, Michigan, New Hampshire, and Iowa. A California Assembly resolution encouraging the use of SCI and TM in state schools, however, died in committee early in 1974. It had drawn fire from Christian groups as unconstitutional support of sectarian doctrine and practice.

According to a Time cover story on Maharishi (October 13, 1975), seventeen research grants involving TM have been funded by the federal government. They include the following:

1. The National Institute of Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism granted $72,000 for training in TM for thirty alcoholics in the Washington, D.C., area.

2. Federal funds of $35,000 were provided for a Title III educational research program in New Jersey schools training 150 students in TM.

3. State and federal grants totaling $29,000 for training in TM were made to the South County Regional World-Study Program in Narragansett, Rhode Island.

In the United States, TM was first introduced as an extra-curricular course at the high school level in Eastchester, New York, in January, 1971, under the direction of school superintendent Dr. Francis G. Driscoll. In the fall of 1971, the SCI course was introduced for regular credit at this school. The Dade County Public School System (Miami, Florida) offered the SCI course to twenty-two teachers in 1973 preparatory to offering it to students. TM is made available to these SCI students as an “optional lab.” TM has been offered as a separate course in itself in some schools at levels as low as the primary grades. Through the fall of 1975, approximately twenty-five high schools offered SCI as a regular course. Introductory lectures offering TM on an extra-curricular basis have been presented much more widely at many schools where the integrated SCI/TM course has not been presented. SCI is the academic part of the course while TM is called the laboratory-

Much of the impetus for teaching TM in public schools has come from preliminary research indicating that drug-users who persist in meditation tend to reduce their use of drugs. However, since many drug-abusers are not interested in practicing TM, and others drop out after starting it, the notion that TM is an effective solution to the drug-abuse problem is an illusion.

Opposition to the teaching of SCI and TM in public schools on grounds that its concealed religious aspect violates constitutional guarantees against sectarian indoctrination at public expense has emerged, notably in California and New Jersey. In California, Lutheran pastor William Grunow filed a class action suit in the superior court for the County of Alameda against the San Lorenzo Unified School District over the teaching of TM to fourteen seventh-graders in 1974–5 and the teaching of an SCI course at San Lorenzo High School. In view of the lawsuit, the school district filed a declaration with the judge promising never again to recommend these courses. A legal precedent is still lacking, unfortunately, since the court found it unnecessary to rule on the plaintiffs’s suit in view of the defendant’s promise to oppose teaching SCI and TM in the future. Even so, educators who become aware of the San Lorenzo court action will be cautious about committing themselves to courses likely to provoke legal action.

Another lawsuit opposing SCI and TM in public schools is pending in New Jersey, where the federal government (which has provided funds for teaching SCI in New Jersey) is among the defendants. The Counterfeits Project has provided plaintiffs with information developed for the San Lorenzo court action. It is hoped that the New Jersey case will bring a definitive legal judgment on the issues involved.

Maharishi has had an extremely favorable press treatment, though recently the very success of his movement seems to have brought about some critical scrutiny. Favorable feature articles on TM have appeared in many magazines, ranging from Mademoiselle to Soldier’s (the official U.S. Army magazine). Academic, scientific, and business journals have also published favorable reports along with occasional adverse comments and a few critical articles. Time’s cover story for October 13, 1975, was on Maharishi.

A major breakthrough on commercial television came in April, 1975, when Maharishi was interviewed by Merv Griffin (a new and enthusiastic meditator) on Griffin’s talk show. Other guests giving testimonials for TM on that show were TV actress Ellen Corby (Grandma Walton), California state senator Arlen Gregorio, and psychiatrist-TM teacher Harold Bloomfield. Because of the show’s great success, another was taped for release on Halloween, 1975. Special guest meditators for the second show were film actor Clint Eastwood, television personality Mary Tyler Moore, psychiatrist Bernard Glueck, and Minnesota congressman Richard N. Nolan.

The April Griffin interview with Maharishi was significant also for a revealing remark made by the guru. It was observed that a drug offender had been sentenced to four years of TM by a judge in Detroit, Michigan. Maharishi’s enthusiastic comment was: “This is the judgment of the Dawn of the Age of Enlightenment where the man is forced to develop his pure consciousness by law. This is the law of the Age of Enlightenment. By penalty he is forced to evolve” (emphasis mine). The unchanging law of the “Age of Enlightenment” that Maharishi has been heralding since January, 1975, is, “… gain the knowledge of Science of Creative Intelligence and practice Transcendental Meditation twice a day” (Western TM Reporter, Summer, 1974, p. 10). What will become of those who reject the knowledge of SCI and the practice of TM as a matter of conscience? The answer has not been stated directly, but Maharishi has said:

There has not been and there will not be a place for the unfit. The fit will lead, and if the unfit are not coming along there is no place for them In the Age of Enlightenment there is no place for ignorant people. The ignorant will be made enlightened by a few orderly, enlightened people moving around [Atlanta Gazette, April 2, 1975, p. 17],

Maharishi’s “Age of Englightenment” apparently is not to be characterized by tolerance for opposing points of view.

In addition to favorable publicity on commercial TV, the WPEC has recently gained educational TV channels on both coasts of the United States. These stations can broadcast the videotaped lectures of Maharishi presenting the principles of the Hindu monism of Shankara as the “Science of Creative Intelligence.” They may also develop programs with meditating public figures such as singers Stevie Wonder and Peggy Lee and sports stars Joe Namath, Bill Walton, and Craig Lincoln.

The two best-selling books promoting TM appeared last year. In hard cover, TM: Discovering Inner Energy and Overcoming Stress by Harold Bloomfield, Michael Cain, and Dennis Jaffe was the third best non-fiction seller nationwide for 1975. Chapters two and seven of this book are valuable for their choice examples of the postulates of Hindu monism translated into psychological terminology. In soft cover, The TM Book by Denise Denniston and Peter McWilliams sugar-coats the TM pill with the usual religious disclaimer, graphs of research studies, and whimsical illustrations by Barry Geller. The TM Book begins with the assertion “TM does not involve religious beliefs.” In answer to the questions “Does TM conflict with any form of religion?” testimonial letters from a Jewish rabbi, a Catholic priest, and a Lutheran theologian who practice TM are presented. Two of these letters will be considered later in this article.

The American Foundation for the Science of Creative Intelligence (AFSCI) was formed to take the message of TM to business corporations. It is claimed that TM increases efficiency and job satisfaction among employees and is even more helpful in relieving the tensions of managers. AFSCI has succeeded in convincing corporations like AT&T and General Foods to offer the TM course to their employees.

On November 1, 1751, a committee of the Pennsylvania Provincial Assembly, in ordering a bell for the tower of the new State House, instructed that these words from the Old Testament be inscribed on it: “Proclaim liberty throughout all the land unto all the inhabitants thereof.” The Liberty Bell, tradition tells us, heralded the signing of the Declaration of Independence twenty-five years later.

This Scripture verse is from a section of Leviticus that announced to the people of Israel the “year of jubilee.” We read, “You shall hallow the … year and proclaim liberation in the land for all its inhabitants. You shall make this your year of jubilee.” (Lev. 25:10).

The year was to be celebrated not through pageantry but through concrete acts that flowed from a deeper commitment to God’s justice. The jubilee year proclaimed liberation for the poor and the oppressed. The disinherited were to be restored to their own land. Debts were to be repaid and forgiven, so that those who were bound in economic servitude to others would be free. In short, the jubilee year was a striking course of action and law that helped the dispossessed, insured the just stewardship of wealth and resources, and expressed God’s passion for justice.

It was not the imposition of self-righteous kingly power but the faithfulness of the people to their God that would imbue the whole society with this vision. Yet the history of this ancient people reveals that they continually turned to idols and gods of their own making, trusting in their own self-sufficiency, forsaking the weightier demands of justice and mercy, and being confronted with God’s judgment.

When Jesus Christ entered human history, his ministry was inaugurated with the same prophetic call for justice and liberation. He rose in the synagogue, Luke tells us, and read from Isaiah, announcing his mission in words that rekindled the vision of the year of jubilee: “The spirit of the Lord is upon me because he has anointed me; he has sent me to announce good news to the poor, to proclaim release for prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind; to let the broken victims go free, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor (Luke 4:18).

There he was-God’s love incarnate, pouring his life out in sacrificial service for others, proclaiming that God’s own kingdom was breaking into our midst, and faithfully following this calling to death on a cross. Through Christ’s resurrection we see revealed power that is “far above all government and authority, all power and dominion, and any title of sovereignty that can be named.” And here is the power that can set each of us free from human bondage to self, sin, and futility.

The hope that is ours today as a people rests not in our great history or traditions, not in our accomplishments or our own power, but in this One-sovereign over all—who even now is Judge of the nations, and offers to us his healing power.

The biblical message of liberation, etched into the side of the Liberty Bell, resonant through the Scriptures, confronts us this day as judgment, but offers renewing hope. Its liberating power calls us away from placing our trust in the false values, gods, and idols of our own making that characterize this era.

Today our abundance, which has brought material blessings to so many, threatens us spiritually as a peril. Never have we known such wealth, but never have we worshiped wealth more. Dazzled by material success, we have developed a new religion: the worship of progress. We have placed faith in technology, and devote increasing billions to life-destroying arsenals. Whereas people once looked toward God for salvation, our culture now propels them toward the domination of nature and fellow human beings in a ceaseless quest for material accumulation. The search for the transcendent, mystical, supernatural reality of life is being supplanted by religious devotion to what is visible, tangible, and synthetic.

From such bondage Jesus Christ yearns to set us free. “Where your treasure is,” Christ said, “there your heart will be also.” He proclaims unto us who are rich, and unto those who are poor, a jubilee that would liberate us all from spiritual and physical improverishment.

Obedience to Christ can exercise a vital influence in our corporate life as a nation and people, but only on his own terms. To believe that true faithfulness to Jesus Christ will bolster our structures of power, or protect society’s status quo, is impious folly. We who are finite dare not attempt to use an infinite God for our own ends.

Jesus Christ lived, died, and rose again to give to us the gift of new life and to proclaim a new order. Therein lies the hope for all humanity. We have been given the vision of how our personal and corporate life can be molded by values undergirded by an all-encompassing love.

But all this runs counter to the realities of power and politics that often possess each of us. It requires a break, a new starting point. This is repentance—personal and collective. It commands us to turn from selfishness, materialism, and prelacy and turn to selfless love, spiritual fullness, and servanthood.

Our hope as a people is found only in our response to him who is King of Kings and Lord of Lords. Let there be no mistake: such a hope entails a profound new beginning. Christ’s love liberates us, and breaks the parameters of the old order to institute a new creation, within us and among us. What we require at this juncture in our history is a new revolution—a spiritual revolution that transforms our values and reshapes our corporate life. This would be the natural manifestation of true repentance.

Lest we think that such words sound impractical, irrational, or outlandish, we should recognize that the core of our own American Revolution was not the waging of a successful war but a dramatically new starting point that first transformed the hearts and minds of the colonists, nurturing a new vision. John Adams clearly explained this truth when he wrote:

What do we mean by the Revolution? The American War? That was no part of the Revolution.… The Revolution was in the minds and hearts of the people. A change in their religious sentiments, or their duties and obligations.… This radical change in the principles, opinions, sentiments and affections was the real American Revolution.

Today the message of Christ presents us with the imperative of a “radical change” in our values-a change spiritually rooted, whose effects would be revolutionary in our time. Its first impact would be a new understanding of leadership. “The rulers of the world lord it over you,” Christ said, “But I am among you as one who serves.” Christ was among us in the form of a servant, and he demonstrated his leadership by washing others’ feet. Following him means we are to lose our lives in order to find them.

Embracing the power of love, we are to forsake the love of power. Therein we discover the power that truly is the most revolutionary force—the power of sacrificial love, shown to the whole world by Christ’s redeeming death on a cross. As St. Paul told early believers:

This doctrine of the cross is sheer folly to those on their way to ruin, but to us who are on the way to salvation it is the power of God.… Divine folly is wiser than the wisdom of man, and divine weakness stronger than man’s strength. My brothers, think what sort of people you are, whom God has called. Few of you are men of wisdom, by any human standard; few are powerful or highly born. Yet, to shame the wise, God has chosen what the world counts folly, and to shame what is strong, God has chosen what the world counts weakness. He has chosen things low and contemptible, mere nothings, to overthrow the existing order. And so there is no place for human pride in the presence of God.… Christ Jesus is our righteousness; in him we are … set free [1 Cor. 1:18, 25–30],

We can discover authentic and creative power in servanthood. From such a posture of humility, our nation could affirm this true understanding of leadership. Abraham Lincoln exemplified this well when he wrote:

We have grown in numbers, wealth, and power as no other nation has ever grown. But … we have vainly imagined, in the deceitfulness of our hearts, that all these blessings were produced by some superior wisdom and virtue of our own. Intoxicated with unbroken success, we have become too self-sufficient to feel the necessity of redeeming and preserving grace, too proud to pray to the God that made us. It behooves us, then, to humble ourselves before the offended Power, to confess our national sins, and to pray for clemency and forgiveness.

This new revolution would also bring a true understanding of our common humanity. When we encounter the Creator through repentance and love, our hearts are turned outward to all people. We discover a boundless love—the indiscriminate love of a Father who rushes to embrace the returning prodigal, and gives a feast. It is a love that knows no boundaries of class, race, ideology, or nation.

We see it manifest in Jesus. His love knew no conditions; it extended to all. We are to love as he did, for to hate another, for whatever reason, is to hate one for whom Christ suffered and died. We are called to an unlimited liability for our brothers and sisters throughout all creation. There are no exclusions to make, no qualifications to impose. Their destiny, their livelihood, and their fulfillment become inseparable from our own.

Finally, this spiritual revolution will produce a just embodiment of stewardship. In our era, this is critical to the vision of liberation that God offers humanity, just as when the jubilee year was first proclaimed to the people of Israel.

Humanity is beset by a cleavage between the wealthy and the impoverished; further, the affluence of a few is dramatized by the realities of global scarcity. We here are the guardians of enormous prosperity; as a people we utilize about 40 per cent of the globe’s resources, yet we have only 6 per cent of its people.

Our materialism holds us in bondage to what we consume and process. But Christ’s good news sets us free from the poverty of abundance. That freedom can be the means for liberating those who face death this day because of impoverishment that is beyond their control. In the end this revolution will teach us that we own nothing. We are only stewards. The world’s resources belong to its Creator; they are to be used not for the luxury of a few but the livelihood of all.

To whom much has been given, our Lord said, much is required. He asked us for our love, our commitment, our possessions, our discipleship. In this we will find our truest freedom.

Let us begin this revolution now. Let us be known as a people who are committed to the primacy of spiritual community, and as just and compassionate stewards in service to the needs of humanity.

Christ calls each one of us to give ourselves to this liberating revolution. Let us covenant with one another to mobilize our resources and commit our lives for the corporate spiritual transformation that this revolution will bring. He awaits us now, with his love reaching out, even for the “healing of the nations.” Let us listen for his word speaking to each of us. And let us “stand fast, therefore, in the liberty wherewith Christ has made us free.”

SOUTHERN CROSS

“In the Southern Milky Way the brilliant stars, Alpha, Beta, Gamma and Delta, form this smallest of all the constellations, the line joining Gamma to Alpha points toward the South Pole.”

This cruciform quartet of stars,

These living wounds of light

Shine like suspended

Upon the base of night.

And even at affacing noon

When sight averts the skies,

The cross prevails insistently,

Imprisoned in the eyes.

GEORGE E. MCDONOUGH

Yes

… but responsibly so, says Congressman John B. Anderson¹John B. Anderson, a member of First Evangelical Free Church, Rockford, Illinois, has been a congressman since 1960 and chairman of the House Republican Conference since 1971. He holds the J.D. degree from the University of Illinois and the LL.M. from Harvard Law School.

In a Declaration of Evangelical Concern signed by fifty-three evangelical leaders in Chicago in November, 1973, the following statement appears:

As evangelical Christians committed to the Lord Jesus Christ and the full authority of the Word of God, we affirm that God lays total claim upon the lives of his people. We cannot, therefore, separate our lives in Christ from the situation in which God has placed us in the United States and the world.

An appreciation of this point should compel us to participate in rather than be passive toward the political process.

I recently attended an international meeting at which the global crisis was summed up as an outcry of the 70 per cent of the world that lives at or below the subsistence level not only for freedom but for greater equality among mankind. To those who would answer that human beings are not born equal, the great Norwegian writer Sigrid Undset had an answer:

That element of Democracy which is in Christianity is the only one which cannot be argued out of existence. Against all talk of equality there remains the irrefutable objection that human beings are not equal—one is a coin of copper, another of silver. Christianity meets this objection by maintaining that all of them are minted with a King’s picture on them.

Many Christians have taken to heart St. Paul’s admonition and reminder that all human beings are created of one blood and are therefore equal in the sight of God. They have correspondingly rejected racism and the idea that some people bear a badge of servitude because of the color of their skin. However, economic inequality can condemn people to lives blighted and shortened by inadequate nutrition, education, and health care. Poverty can be as devastating to the growth and development of the human personality as racism.

In this Bicentennial year, American Christians need to remember that our Declaration of Independence begins with the idea that “all men are created equal” and that all are endowed by their Creator with those inalienable rights of “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.” And yet we accept inequality very matter-of-factly and assuage our conscience by paying taxes and giving alms. As Christians we readily see the moral content of social issues like abortion, drug abuse, and p*rnography. We write letters protesting the income-tax provisions that permit corporations to deduct as a business expense advertisem*nts for alcoholic beverages. However, I rarely receive a letter from one of my Christian friends seeking tax reform and the elimination of loopholes for the rich so that we can enjoy greater equality under the law.

Christian involvement in the political process requires a far greater degree of understanding of what the really basic issues are in this final quarter of the twentieth century. I venture to say that most evangelical Christians not only are economic illiterates but don’t spend five minutes a week worrying about it. As a result they incline toward excessively simplistic political judgments because they can’t begin to know when Politician A is making sense and Politician B is really insulting their intelligence.

The 1970s were launched with some fanfare as a decade when the “quality of life” would be accented in what government would do. The emphasis was to be on improving our physical environment—a highly commendable goal. Yet I believe that an aim of Christian involvement in the political process should be to put the letter “e” in front of that word “quality.” That ought to be the emphasis of the Church—to make the crooked straight, to let justice mean something in the area of distribution, not only retribution. Then, in the words of the prophet Amos, justice would roll down like a mighty flood, cleansing us from the hypocrisy of a system founded on equality but flourishing amid the grossest forms of inequality.

How shall we involve Christians in an effort to reform the political process that has permitted this to happen? Not, I believe, through a separatist movement to form its own political faction. This would be offensive to our constitutional tradition. One such movement just recently announced its formal demise; it was doomed from the outset. I think the task can be done within existing institutions. However, it must begin with a conscious effort to encourage Christians to become far better informed on a wide range of issues that bear upon the need for basic reform of our society.

The director of the American Revolutionary Bicentennial Commission has called for Bicentennial programs that will do more than simply culminate in a celebration of the date when we achieved our independence. They should somehow carry seeds of new ideas that will provide inspiration for the century to come.

The churches, with seminars, study groups, and commissions, could mount a great educational effort on the local level to examine our society and see where we have fallen so far short of our original noble goals. A truly informed Christian electorate could provide that spiritual dimension so lacking in our national life today.

No

… not necessarily, explains Professor Achie Penner²Archie Penner is professor of religion at Malone College, Canton, Ohio. He holds the M.A. from Wheaton College and the Ph.D. from the University of Iowa. He is an ordained minister of the Evangelical Mennonite Church.

Biblical pacifism, in contrast to political or humanitarian pacifism, seeks to base its conclusion squarely on the Scriptures. “Pacifism” is a biblical word. It comes from two Latin words, pax and facere (“peace” and “to make”) and is therefore equivalent to the Greek, eirenopoioi, translated “peace-makers” in Matthew 5:9. Whether the content of the position described by the word is indeed biblical must be determined by sound exegesis.

Politics, as popularly viewed, is that function and activity which concerns promoting and seeking public governmental office, along with the exercising of the power and privileges of that office. To the question of whether Christians ought to be involved in the political process, some individuals and groups within the tradition of biblical pacifism respond in unconventional ways.

Christians agree that all of life, therefore also the political aspect of it, is ethical to the core. But how are ethics for the Christian determined? The biblical pacifist takes the proclamation of Christ, in word and action, including every dimension of his life and death, as constituting both the content and the finality of a Christian’s ethics (1 Peter 2:18–25). He does not see this as an escape from the Old Testament. Rather, he feels he has accepted it as it should be accepted, namely as interpreted and exemplified in Christ. He bases his ethics on the ethic of Jesus’ love, a love which will not return evil for evil, but which forgives in every domain of life and relationship. Therefore, both his social and political responsibilities can find their expression only within the sphere of for-giving, agape love. He does not need to see this as a withdrawal strategy, but rather as an involvement within those limits imposed by this concept of love. In fact, this love impels him to social participation.

Also, the biblical pacifist does not recognize any differentiation between a private or personal and official ethic. There is only one ethic, the ethic of love which is expressed in Jesus, for every relationship and responsibility.

Pragmatic demands for social action or participation, determined by human reason and dictated by the situation, and not subjected to the will of Christ and thus to the ethics of Jesus, are invalid for the biblical pacifist. He, too, believes in relevancy, but it is the relevancy of a given social or political action to the divine purpose, not a relevancy to human goals selfishly formed and executed. He would consider ill advised the claim that the fact of participation itself already spells relevancy. Could not non-participation in social action at times be far more relevant than participation which demeans and destroys?

The biblical pacifist believes in justice. He desires it. He works for it. In fact, true agape produces true justice. But what he cannot do and remain consistent with his concept of the love ethic, as C. H. Dodd puts it, is to take part in the administration of a “retributive system of justice.” If it is argued that this retributive system is necessary in the structures of social and political relations, and that this necessity is indeed the justification for participation in the system of retributive justice, the pacifist would object. It surely would not have been justifiable for a follower of Christ to have participated actively in the crucifixion of the Lord of glory, even though Christ’s death was by far the most necessary action in all of history (in the light of human sinfulness and the love of God).

In summary, the love ethic of Jesus applied in all human relations at every moment of history dictates the sphere, the amount, and the kind of action and participation which the biblical pacifist considers alone legitimate in his endeavor to please his Lord. The ethical code of the pacifist believer can be described as “kingdom” ethics, relevant today. Or, to state a parallel to C. H. Dodd’s realized eschatology, we can call it realized ethics.

It has been necessary to describe some essentials of the ethical positions of the biblical pacifist in order to understand his specific view on social and political involvement. The principles have led to various applications.

First, there are those in the tradition of biblical pacifism who avoid as best they know how all direct involvement in the political scene. At the same time, they generally accept some aspects of social responsibility.

A second approach strongly emphasizes social and political involvement in terms of practical expressions of agape: help the needy, feed the hungry, and minister in the entire context of human needs congruent with scriptural standards. Politically, there must be the dynamics of moral influence in terms of requests, referendums, appeals, persuasion, and the like, but primarily because of the governmental “sword carrying function,” neither office holding nor the use of the ballot are acceptable.

However, a third approach for the same reasons of ethics would argue that the use of the ballot, different from actually holding office, does not organically make a person responsible for those functions of the state which contravene a voter’s ethics. Consequently, the ballot becomes this pacifist’s responsibility. Admittedly, the gap between pulling a lever and participating personally, even with a passion, is a narrow one.

Political office holding, a fourth option, presents another problem. Many who adhere to kingdom ethics, feel there is much of a positive nature with which the biblical pacifist has no quarrel, and to which he can be related effectively as an incumbent of any one of a number of political offices. However, because political offices by their nature are organically bound up with coercion and retribution, he must refrain from office holding. This school of thought would agree with Brunner’s statement that coercive action “of the state is a contradiction of the law of love.… [It] is contrary to love; it is sinful.”

Yet others would argue that an office holder is not compromised by offensive decisions and actions if he personally is not involved in them. Therefore, he can hold political office and apply his ethics, characterized by forgiving love in every one of his decisions and actions. But the incongruence of these with the necessity of coercion and retribution, either in actuality or principle, could spell his unacceptability at any time.

The biblical pacifist’s position would seem to demand the greatest social responsibility. However, it must not be demanded of him that he contravene his ethics. In fact, it is precisely at the juncture where his ethics are contravened that his responsibilities cease.

While in Oxford, as well as in other English universities, I became involved in many discussions with students on the situation of religion and believers in socialist (Communist) countries. On one such occasion, an Oxford student asked a question I had not encountered before: “Why are Marxists against religion? What has Marxism to do with religion?”

The question put me on the spot. I did not know how to answer it. But the essential importance of the question was such that I determined to do everything possible to find the answer. It was obvious that a dialogue on the place of a Christian in socialism must begin with this question.

It is known that Marx, Lenin, and Stalin were deeply interested in religion in their youth. They studied it seriously and wrote about it sympathetically. What caused these men to turn against religion and find it imperative to fight for religion’s destruction, its removal from men’s thoughts and lives? In attempting an explanation, one writer cites certain traumatic experiences which these leaders had with the church or Christianity in general. But this attributing of a vast social phenomenon to the unfortunate experiences of a few, even though they were the creators of Marxism-Leninism, seems to be inadequate.

Many years of Marxist studies at school and university, and ten years of political education as a teacher in a country with a Marxist government, have taught me that an idea cannot take root and become a phenomenon of the masses unless it meets with favorable social and political conditions. Therefore, applying Marxist thought to the interpretation of an aspect of Marxism, I posed this pertinent question to myself. What special historical conditions persuaded the teachers of Marxism-Leninism to consider the religious problem so important that they gave a good part of their time to it? What were they pursuing in their fight against idealism in general and Christianity as such? There must have been specific social and political conditions which determined this course of action. Whatever the personal experiences of Marx or Lenin may have been, these would have remained personal. They would not normally have been transformed into a mass movement.

Marx lived much of his life in England where, at that time in the last century, nearly two-thirds of the population attended church every Sunday. England was a country where the majority of people were at least nominal Christians, among whom were a major portion of the working classes. In England Marx discovered the mechanism of capitalist exploiters, and he worked out the pattern of revolution which would end this exploitation. He believed that the proletarian revolution must be realized in the country which had at that time the most developed industry and the largest number of the proletariat. It was at this very point that the projected revolution collided with the religious world outlook. When the working class believes in a better life in heaven and trusts in a God who punishes violence, there can be no revolution. A man who believes in a better life beyond the grave will not risk eternity by venturing into a war for happiness in this ephemeral life, especially if victory is uncertain. The person who believes that God punishes the murderer will never raise his hand against his exploiters; he will leave vengeance and his liberation from misery to God, regardless of whether these things happen now or in eternity. To the creators of Marxism-Leninism, religion was an obstacle on the road to revolution, and this above all else led the Marxist teachers to fight against Christianity.

Their main problem was this: for a man to be persuaded to take up arms in protest against “the crude and unjust system” he first had to arrive at two psychological states. First, he needed to be a desperate man, a bitter man without any hope in an after life, one who had reached the conclusion that the present is his only chance. Second, he had to be a man without scruples, one who “knew” that God does not exist to punish (or reward) him, and who consequently was not troubled by his conscience when faced with the question of armed violence against those who withhold material goods. Marxist-Leninists believed that only atheism could produce such a man. They were convinced that a special ideology would produce a certain character in man, and this fundamental and vitally important contribution was significant for the future of socialism.

It was this conviction which led the Marxist teachers to launch their attack against religion by indoctrinating the working classes with atheistic ideology, action which they called “the ideological preparation for revolution.”

It was their sincere, incensed desire to rid the working masses of exploitation which made them begin this. The necessity for the mechanical formulation of a special type of revolutionary man made them attack the Christian faith, regardless of the truth or falsity of Christianity.

This desperate and unscrupulous man through whom the revolution had to be realized was not foreseen by the Marxist-Leninist teachers as an essential ingredient of the Communist society which would be established as a result of the revolution. On the contrary, in regard to that society they introduced another concept, that of the “new man.”

Two major premises should be noted concerning the new man in the socialist system. First, he should not be alienated from the means of production. All means of production will be the property of everyone. Therefore, man will yield all his energies freely to the process of producing material goods for society as a whole, and by this he will discover fulfillment in the creative process. Second, freed from corruption by the strength of the socialist system, he will handle the goods honestly and will distribute them freely, taking only as much as he needs so that enough will remain for all his kinsmen. He will be a man who will yield all his forces freely for others, a totally committed altruist.

This was the dream that Marxist-Leninist teachers had of the new man in socialism, and without whom they clearly demonstrated that Communism would not be realized. They were convinced that a radical and essential change of man’s character would happen automatically once the economic, political, and social systems were altered.

Today, many years after the revolution has passed, it is clear that socialist man’s character has not changed. He has remained as he was in the capitalist society: an egoist, full of vice, and devoid of uprightness. It follows that the creation of the new man still remains today a burden to be realized, the fulfillment of which is forever encountering obstacles.

Why is it that this new man refuses to appear in conformity to all the visions and expectations? (Not wishing to be misunderstood, I must make it clear that we are not suggesting that there are no men in today’s socialist society who are altruistic, correct, or of a noble character. Far from it. Rather, I am referring to the new man as a general phenomenon of the masses, a transformation that is not happening.)

The present impasse, from a historical point of view, has been caused by the materialistic concept of man. Marxist teachers considered man’s character to be the product of his environment. The social systems of serfdom, feudalism, and capitalism were corrupt, based on the exploitation of man. Their social characteristics were theft, violence, and dishonesty. No man shaped within these systems could escape, and of necessity he acquired a vicious character, similar to the system which produced him. Subsequently, since a man is only the product of his environment, one needs only to create a social system founded on justice and honor to produce a man of noble character, an honest, upright man.

Lenin, thinking on these lines, wrote shortly before the revolution in 1917 that Marxists did not consider it necessary to preach morality to the working classes: the bourgeois did this with the intention of keeping the workers in subjection. Marxists have a better way: they will change the social order, and this in turn will produce a new type of man.

There are indications Lenin realized shortly after the revolution that his hope in the spontaneous appearance of the new man in socialism was not being fulfilled. Despite the change in the social-political system, man’s character had not been changed. On the contrary, the problem of corruption and dishonesty in the socialist administration became a serious deficiency.

There is evidence that Lenin then turned to Pavlov, who on the basis of his experiments with animals produced a 400-page paper on how to create a new type of social character with conditioned reflexes. But Pavlovianism in the name of Soviet reforms achieved nothing but immense suffering and terrible tragedy for a million people. Thus the materialistic concept of man led to a socio-political mistake. Instead of bringing joy to society it brought terror and horror. It is a concept that hinders the process of formulating a new man.

So here we face a contradiction in Marxist thought. Before the revolution a specific ideology was proclaimed that would provoke a particular world outlook in a man. For a short while after the revolution it was believed that the new economic, social, and political system would produce the new attitude, the new character in man. This failure to produce a new man raised a fundamental question. What produces the character of man: social order or ideology? Is the character of man an automatic product of social forces, or is character shaped by the world outlook which inspires a man?

Evidence indicates that ideology, the inspiring concept of life and the world, shapes and forms men’s character. For example, look at the monstrosities produced by Hitler’s ideology.

Assuming this, we must ask an important question: “Since the ideology of atheism produces a character that is not essential to a victorious socialism, but on the contrary works against it, why continue to spread it?”

In Romania there is wide acceptance of the view that education is the determining factor in the formulation of character. It was the task of the schools to produce the new man needed by the socialist state. Each autumn, in his remarks to the teaching staff, our local Party leader impressed upon us our primary responsibility of producing the new man. But why could the school not succeed in rising to the task assigned by the Party?

I once discussed this issue with the Party secretary of a school where I taught. He was a young physics teacher. I reminded him that he and other science teachers taught their pupils that life is the product of chance combinations of matter, that it is governed by Darwinian laws of adaptation and survival, and that it is man’s only chance. There is no after-life, no “saviour” to reward self-sacrifice or to punish egoism or rapacity. After the pupils have been thus taught, I am sent in to teach them to be noble and honorable men and women, expending all their energies on doing good for the benefit of society, even to the point of self-sacrifice. They must be courteous, tell only the truth, and live a morally pure life. But they lack motivation for goodness. They see that in a purely material world only he who hurries and grabs for himself possesses anything. Why should they be self-denying and honest? What motive can be offered them to live lives of usefulness to others?

After a period of silence, the physics teacher commented: “To be candid, I do not see why I should be good and honest. I know that if I don’t pull some strings or stab someone in the back, I will not advance or succeed in life. And success is everything for me.”

Recently I have asked many Marxist ideologists how Marxist philosophy endeavors to promote morality and nobility of character. They replied that the only way of inspiring the giving of self for others is to claim that the pursuit of the common good means the realization of personal good. They pointed out, however, that this motivation fails when an individual realizes that this common good is only slowly achieved, a process that may last for generations, and that by using the various levers and means available to him he can have the goods now—ahead of the majority. Once a person knows this, there is no moral principle preventing him from using every means for personal advantage, even if it is detrimental to society.

Again the socialist society finds itself in a paradoxical situation. It desires a new man of noble character, but it propagates an ideology which cannot offer men any assistance or inspiration. Moreover, it pushes men towards desperate and dishonest action, to a life-style totally dominated by egoistic purposes.

The next question that follows logically is this one: “In light of Marxist-Leninist teaching that ideology makes the man, what ideology is capable of producing the new man of high aspiration and noble character, one who will sacrifice himself for the common good and be absolutely upright in his behavior?”

The only answer: the ideology of the one who possessed the most noble character of all, Jesus Christ, who sacrificed himself for the good of his fellow men. For almost 2,000 years he has not ceased to produce the finest people who ever walked the earth. As we look at his disciples in Scripture and in history, we can see that wherever the spirit of Christ’s teaching was accepted and assimilated in its totality, the result was a noble life put to the service of the common good, even at the cost of self-sacrifice.

When an individual accepts Christ, he experiences fundamental change. Drunkards and adulterers forsake their ways. Those weak in character grow in strength and in integrity. Drug addicts are delivered. (Government studies show that delinquency and crime rates among young people in our churches are virtually zero.)

The apostle Paul coined the concept of the “new man.” He began by declaring: “If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation” (2 Cor. 5:17). He later introduced the precise terminology, “the new man,” to show those united with Christ their mode of life as it should be in him. Paul’s concept was not an innovation. Christ himself enunciated man’s need of a radical transformation he called “the new birth.” One who trusts in him becomes a new creation, a new man after the likeness of Christ, who is the new man par excellence.

Far from denying the value of religion, modern science shows its indispensable character for a wholly integrated human personality. We are told that man is born with certain inherent structures. One of these structures is religious in nature. Without religious life, man has a sense of incompleteness, a feeling of inner emptiness that leads him to believe he is unfulfilled, his destiny unaccomplished. If socialism seeks the complete fulfillment of human personality—and this is its declared intention-then it must take note of the religious dimensions of man that seek to be realized.

Why has Christianity in its 2,000 years of existence not achieved the ideal Christian society? How is it that in the name of religion so many atrocities have been committed over the years? An answer is found in a historical look at Christianity. As time passed, Christianity’s original source of truth was neglected, and preference was given to thought-forms foreign to the Gospel. With Christianity’s acceptance as the state religion of the Roman Empire, emphasis shifted from the power of Christ to change individuals and society to the power of the church to decide the fate of men’s souls. The situation encouraged a life free from restraint or care. Thus institutionalized, religion lost its revolutionary power.

The advent of Protestant Christianity restored the centrality of the Bible. It was placed in the hands of the people, where they could read it for themselves and develop their own spiritual lives. Brought face to face with God, the individual became responsible, and this resulted in transformation of life. When this experience became general on a national scale, the improvement in societies like Sweden, Norway, Denmark, and England was immense.

Decline and abandonment of religion in Protestant countries began with the widespread acceptance of the theories of Charles Darwin. Many theologians capitulated to the new explanation of origins, and they tried to make their peace with science in other areas. Moral standards plummeted.

Scholars no longer are as sure as they once were, however. Materialism has created an immense spiritual vacuum. As long as the scientific world was shielded with a conviction of absolute knowledge, the emptiness was not felt. But in moments of tragedy when science could no longer give a confident answer, the emptiness was felt. Man’s soul can never be satisfied with purely material and cultural goods. Man thirsts for a spiritual world and cannot be satisfied with less than a living contact with it. Spiritual hunger, aspirations after the transcendent, and an avid seeking of religious experience is the new, dominant characteristic of the younger generation in both the West and the East.

Do Protestant Christians have any role as Christians in a socialist society? Is a Christian accepted as such by society? Will he be given the trust that will enable him to work in any employment at any level?

Legally, Christians in Romania have the right to assess and practice a religious belief, but in practice believers here and in other socialist countries are treated with great mistrust and are discriminated against.

Socialist policy on religion is centered on the theory that religion will vanish with the disappearance of the older generations of believers. An East German theologian at a Lutheran convention in 1972 had the courage to comment publicly on this theory. Analyzing the position of Christians as a result of this policy, he described it as one of “toleration to vanishing point.” He said Christians had been granted a period of grace until they were snuffed out. Every regulation, prohibition, and restriction of religious freedom of the churches was imposed with the purpose of accelerating the hoped-for disappearance of religion in socialism.

In reality, religion has not faded away in socialism. Instead, there has been a deepening of religious phenomena. Even among the young people of Romania today there are signs of great spiritual hunger. The fact that religion is not vanishing under socialism but rather growing in strength must cause, sooner or later, a revision and an alteration of the Communist party’s attitude toward this aspect of the individual and social life.

Socialism is fighting against its own interests when it maintains the war against religion. Socialism needs the new man, the moral man. This new man cannot be created by slogans or moral codes of behavior or laws. Only the spirit of Christ can revolutionize a man, transform him, and make him a new kind of person.

Che Guevara, the passionate revolutionary, said: “If socialism does not mean the transformation of man’s character, it does not interest me.” Socialism has tried many ways to achieve this end. Why does it not allow Christ the opportunity to prove his power to transform men? Jesus Christ is not the enemy of this society; he is its only chance. Let socialism give him a free hand to manifest his revolutionary and character-transforming power.

We believers have a place in the socialist state. God chose us to follow him from within socialism. He wants us here. God is at work here. Evangelical Christians are increasing rapidly despite opposition. God has set the Christian within socialism and given him a mission to socialist society. Our task and mission is to present God’s solution to mankind. God has replied to man’s problems, both individually and socially, by giving his son Jesus Christ. He is God’s solution, God’s unique and final response to man’s need. The evangelical Christian is a Christ-bearer, one who reveals Christ and offers him to others. The believer does this joyfully, even if it brings suffering, discrimination, deprivation, or even death.

The divine task of the evangelical Christian living in a socialist country is to lead such a correct and beautiful life that he both demonstrates and convinces this society that he is the new man which socialism seeks.

Defending their hom*osexuality as “God-given” and a “blessing” constituents of the metropolitan Community Church of San Jose, California, have won a major victory for the gay-church movement. In December the Santa Clara County Council of Churches approved the congregation’s request for membership. After nine weeks of controversy, the council last month declined to rescind its action.

SCCCC executive director R. Kenneth Bell says it was probably the most difficult decision faced by the council during the eighteen years he’s been with it. At last count five churches had withdrawn from the council as a result of the decision, and several more were contemplating similar action.

The San Jose church is reportedly the seventh congregation in the Metropolitan Community Churches (MCC) network to be accepted into a local council of churches. Last year the New York City Council of Churches rejected a gay church, the first time it has ever turned down any application. Increasingly, MCC congregations are knocking at the doors of church councils, seeking acceptance—and acceptability. More confrontations like the kind that shattered the long-standing harmony within the SCCCC can be expected in the coming months.

In accepting the San Jose church, the SCCCC declared that the action “should not be construed as condoning hom*osexuality.” Rather, explained leaders, the council has traditionally accepted in love any church which affirms the constitutionally stated purpose and spirit of the council. This includes the desire to manifest oneness in Jesus Christ as divine Lord and Saviour and the agreement to cooperate with other bodies in the ministries of the council. Doctrinal matters and other grounds for passing judgment have been avoided intentionally, the leaders said.

Pastor Aahmes E. Overton of the 340-member Trinity Presbyterian Church of San Jose, a spokesman for the minority view on the council, objected. “If the desire of the council is, in fact, to manifest oneness in Jesus Christ as divine Lord and Savior, then we must recognize that he saves from sin and that he is Lord of our lives,” the 34-year-old minister argued. “Based on the Scriptures, the MCC therefore must be excluded from membership.”

The uproar began at a meeting of the council in December when by a 35–14 vote the MCC was accepted as a member. Two San Jose churches immediately quit the council: the United Presbyterian Church of West Valley and the Blossom Hill Baptist Church. Three others followed: Sunnyvale Baptist, St. Edward’s Episcopal, and Christ United Presbyterian.

Meanwhile, other opponents of the SCCCC’s action began seeking a way within the council to reverse the decision, partly because they felt the entire membership had not had ample opportunity to be fully informed on the issue, and partly because of their belief that the council does perform many valid social ministries and therefore any reaction requires thoughtful consideration.

To help air the issue a paper by Overton, “Another View of the Bible and hom*osexuality,” was distributed to the council’s ninety-one member churches, and an informational forum was held by the SCCCC early last month. In his paper, Overton rebutted the MCC’s progay interpretation of Scripture that is contained in a pamphlet widely distributed by the MCC. Overton cited several medical and sociological assertions that hom*osexuality is a learned behavior. Since this behavior is rejected by the Bible, reasoned Overton, it can be unearned and cleansed through Christ.

At the forum Ms. Jackie Harris, 32, a member of the San Jose MCC board of directors who was married last April to another woman by MCC pastor William D. Chapman, expressed a different view. She declared that she has been able to accept “my God-given sexuality” only in the past four years since she and her “spouse” joined the MCC. “When I stopped condemning myself,” she asserted, “I realized that I had the right to believe I too could be the Christian that I always wanted to be.”

At a meeting of the council on February 10, with a record crowd present, members by a vote of 63–22 and one abstention defeated a motion that would have forced a reconsideration of the SCCCC’s decision to admit the gay church.

Following the vote, Overton called for a study of whether the council’s bylaws should be amended to designate the SCCCC as an association of religious groups banding together for human need rather than a group of churches proclaiming the lordship of Christ. At least in this way, he explained, churches disagreeing with the majority viewpoint could legitimately participate in the council’s social ministries without being forced to equate the lordship of Christ with issues such as hom*osexuality. His motion was defeated by about the same margin as the earlier one.

What remaining members of the minority opinion will do now is uncertain. Overton maintains that despite what has been stated by the council, the action has the effect of condoning hom*osexuality and institutionalizing sin. “I don’t believe that members of the majority opinion have a clear sense of the guidance of the Word of God, and that’s really the issue—the authority of the Scriptures,” he declared.

Gay Confrontation

“Stop Christian persecution of gays!” admonished a placard held high by gay activists at the entrance of Indiana University’s Whittenberger Auditorium. The occasion was a lecture last month by Guy Charles, former gay activist who after thirty-seven years of practicing hom*osexuality committed his life to Christ in 1972 and left the gay life to launch Liberation, a counseling ministry to hom*osexuals in Arlington, Virginia.

Charles, 52, who had previously lectured only before Christian groups, told his audience: “This is the first time I’ve confronted Gay Liberation, and I thank the Lord for the opportunity.” Addressing many of his remarks to “my gay brothers and sisters,” he spoke of his love for them, saying he realized he had come to Bloomington “at a bad time for both the gay community and the Christian community” and wanted to show “how the two can coexist” in the south-central Indiana city of 62,000.

The “bad time” to which Charles referred began last November with a city building inspector’s refusal on moral grounds to grant an occupancy permit for a gay community services center. Subsequently, the city council enacted human rights legislation making Bloomington one of some thirty cities with ordinances barring discrimination based on sexual preference in such areas as housing, education, employment, and access to public accomodations.

In the midst of the debates surrounding these two events, a number of evangelicals were busy launching a campaign to condemn hom*osexuality on biblical grounds. There were paid newspaper and radio announcements. (“God says ‘no’ to gay” was the title of one newspaper advertisem*nt which stated: “The real issue is not hom*osexuality [but] whether the Bible is the word of God”) Letters protesting the ordinance poured in to the local press, citing Romans 1, warning of God’s judgment on the city, and challenging the city council (“Why legalize sin?”).

Gays presented their side as well. One responded to a letter quoting Leviticus 20:13 by asking, “Is God suggesting that heterosexuals kill us?” Some drew upon behavioral science research findings to correct misunderstandings about hom*osexuality. Other gay persons spoke of their own experience of having accepted Christ as personal Saviour, and they reminded readers that Christ died for all and denied no one. A newspaper advertisem*nt entitled, “Our God, too!” decried the fact that hom*osexuals have had to form their own churches because other churches have refused them.

The biggest stir was caused by a businessman’s letter urging prayerful personal decisions “to shun the sodomites and their supporters … and to rededicate our community to the standards set forth by God.” After appearing in the newspaper, the letter was circulated among a number of area churches. More than 2,500 persons signed concurrences in time to be listed with a reprint of the letter of a full-page newspaper advertisem*nt. Hundreds more signed later.

Members of the gay community were described as stunned and hurt. “I felt like somebody hated me, and I couldn’t understand it,” recalls one gay woman. “I felt this must be a group of people who knew nothing of hom*osexuals as people. They didn’t want us to be able to get jobs or have clothing or food or housing. That must be hating.”

Although a few ministers had spoken of going to court in hopes of having the city ordinance ruled illegal on the basis of state sodomy statutes, a decision was made by the Monroe County Evangelical Ministers’ Association to “look for a more helpful way to deal with the issue.”

“We had already taken a negative stand against hom*osexuality,” says United Presbyterian pastor David Faris, “and we felt that now we had a chance to do something positive. We decided to bring Guy Charles for two reasons: to minister to hom*osexuals who are unhappy with their lifestyle and looking for answers, and to give some training to ‘straight’ Christians who are concerned but don’t understand the gay life.” Joining the ministers in sponsoring Charles were the Navigators, Inter-Varsity Christian Fellowship, Campus Crusade for Christ, International Students, and the Christian Student Fellowship. A three-day series of seminars was organized to help Christian leaders to learn how to understand and communicate with gay persons. Charles’s final evening lecture was open to the public.

Perhaps the biggest surprise for many ministers was Charles’s clear support for gay civil rights. He told of the pain of having been rejected from an important job because of his sexual orientation and of his years of suffering even physical violence as a gay activist. “I had my head bashed in so that you could be where you are today in terms of civil rights,” he told the gay men and women in the audience.

“Not only did Guy Charles surprise the ministers,” comments Jim Heuer, co-director of the gay community services center, “but he also surprised the gay people.” In response to a question from the audience about whether the evangelical ministerial group would “be glad” they had brought Charles and “would change as a result,” Charles replied: “They heard things they never expected from me, and there was a lot of soul-searching and struggling. I saw men striving to overcome prejudices, fears, and biases, and to learn something about gays in order to help.” After apparently having done some rethinking as a result of the meetings, most ministers interviewed later said Charles’s stand had indeed surprised them, yet they indicated that nothing would be lost from their viewpoint if they went along with his position. “Most of the ministers have come to the place that they realize these people must earn a living,” said one pastor.

“Guy Charles showed us where we were too severe,” said Free Methodist pastor Elmer Riggs. “He said that instead of hammering them with Romans 1, we should remind ourselves of Romans 2:1, and we should present John 3:16 to them.” He laughed as he added, “I took that rebuke good-naturedly and thought I needed it.” Clergyman Faris made a similar point: “He showed us we should really care about hom*osexuals as people and stop worrying about our image.”

LETHA SCANZONI

The Finding Of A Minister

Donald LaRose, the Baptist minister who disappeared under mysterious circ*mstances from his Maine, New York, church in November (see February 13 issue, page 53), was found last month in Minneapolis. He was living under an assumed name and did not appear to remember his past or his family. He is now under psychiatric care in Pennsylvania.

Shortly before his disappearance on November 4 LaRose had been preaching on Satan and had received threatening calls and letters. Investigators and church officials later established that the 34-year-old clergyman had arranged his own disappearance, and the church dismissed him in absentia.

Last month several families who attend a Plymouth Brethren chapel in Minneapolis recognized LaRose from an article and photo in CHRISTIANITY TODAY They knew him as Bruce Williams. He had shown up unshaven and unkempt at a Minneapolis rescue mission on November 12. When the invitation to receive Christ was given, he responded.

Honeywell engineer Fred Phillips and his family, members at the chapel, took Williams (LaRose) under wing. They helped him to obtain a job as a dishwasher in a cafeteria. Within weeks his supervisors tapped him for a management training program. Meanwhile, observed Phillips, Williams was growing rapidly in the Christian faith (at the outset, said Mrs. Phillips, Williams didn’t seem to know anything about the Bible).

Williams told his new friends at the chapel that his mother and father had been killed in an auto accident, and that his wife and children had left him because he was an alcoholic. He no longer knew where they were. Now that he was a Christian, he said one day, he would like to be reconciled to his family. His friends assisted him in tracking down seeming leads, but they led nowhere.

Williams’s landlady, however, informed a Minneapolis reporter that he had told her a somewhat different story. She said that he identified himself as a salesman in business with his father, and that he told her he was spending Christmas with his parents (he actually spent it with friends from the chapel).

Phillips, upon learning Williams’s true identity, telephoned the LaRose family. A reunion took place on February 12 at the Phillips home. But, said Mrs. Phillips, the minister showed no sign of recognition of his parents or his wife.

LaRose possessed a birth certificate identifying him as Bruce Williams. With this he had been able to obtain a duplicate social security card. He explained that one day he found an application for a copy of the birth certificate in his wallet and mailed it.

Bewildered, some church people suggest he may have been drugged or hypnotized or possessed by a demon, others mention mental disorders.

New York police disclosed that Bruce Williams was a New York resident who was killed in an accident in 1958. Since no “police problems” are involved in the LaRose matter, they stated, the case is closed.

EDWARD E. PLOWMAN

Guatemala: Up From The Rubble

With the dead buried and the wounded bandaged, Guatemala has embarked on the long, hard process of massive cleanup and reconstruction in the aftermath of the earthquake that devasted the Central American country February 4 (see February 26 issue, page 37). The slogan “Guatemala esta en pie”—Guatemala is on its feet—can be seen everywhere, and it describes a spirit that runs strong in the country.

The official statistics showed over 22,000 dead and 75,000 injured. By three weeks after the quake, the initial emergency phase of getting to stricken towns with food, water, and medical aid had pretty well passed, and attention was beginning to center on the urgent problem of housing for the more than one million people left homeless. People are living in makeshift tents made of plastic or bed clothes. Continuing tremors—over 1,000 recorded in the three weeks following the initial shock—do nothing to calm fears or encourage thinking about construction.

The government of President Kjell Laugerud Garcia was credited by most observers with doing a far superior job of handling relief operations than was true in the recent disasters in Honduras and Managua, but there were scattered reports of supplies being diverted by officials and army officers. Aid poured in from around the world (see following story).

Contrary to some sensational reports, food supplies were adequate, for the corn had just been harvested. Most people in rural areas were able to dig out their stores from under the rubble. Said one observer, “If you had to have an earthquake, this was a good time to have it.” An intense cold wave which had battered the country most of January had passed, and the rains are not due until May. Clouds of dust from powdered adobe and lack of water, however, compounded the grief of the victims in most of the towns.

Three weeks after the quake, it was still impossible to assess total evangelical losses. The Central American Mission (CAM) had initially reported no pastors killed, but subsequent information showed that two died in the catastrophe. More than a hundred evangelical church buildings were completely destroyed, and many others were heavily damaged. Many congregations have been meeting in the open air as a result (see photo).

CEPA, the Permanent Evangelical Committee for Aid, had organized ninety local relief committees throughout the affected area. The majority of denominations within the country along with outside relief agencies were cooperating with CEPA, but many churches had their own programs as well. In ten cities, the evangelical committees were the only government-authorized groups aiding local people.

Evangelist Billy Graham flew to Guatemala to give a ten-minute talk on nationwide television, to speak at a meeting of Christian leaders, and to visit the disaster zones. He and his interpreter, Argentine-born evangelist Luis Palau, were given a helicopter tour by the President’s son. Graham said the devastation in Guatemala surpassed anything he had ever seen, including war damage in Viet Nam.

Palau, who conducted crusades in the nation in 1971 and 1972 and who has had a continuing radio and television ministry there since then, reported that the demonstration of interest and concern by leading evangelicals was received with appreciation.

Graham addressed a meeting of evangelical leaders in the Central Presbyterian Church, a historic building right behind the National Palace. The church had lost much of its ceiling, but it was not structurally damaged. Halfway through the message, another strong tremor was felt, but the evangelist continued speaking and his capacity audience resisted the temptation to run into the streets.

Missionary Aviation Fellowship planes from Honduras and several independent missionary pilots were kept busy flying supplies and the wounded. Three weeks after the quake an MAF Mexico-based helicopter was called in to reach some still-isolated villages.

With local radio stations all on the government network for over two weeks after the disaster, the Christian stations were not able to minister spiritually, but they did serve an important role in communicating official information.

The spirit among believers following the tragedy continued to amaze observers. Members of the CAM-related Ezel church in the town of Patzun, which was a total loss, brought their traditional offering of corn to the church the second Sunday after the quake. “We always have a thankgiving service after the harvest,” said one of the elders, “and the believers wanted to do it this year too. But we have lost so many.”

Evangelical groups were also actively taking advantage of the spiritual climate created by the disaster for evangelism. Many churches mounted an intensive effort of meetings, films, and distribution of literature, including a special booklet based on the story of the earthquake.

STEPHEN SYWULKA

Tools, Trucks, And Traumatologists

Tons of relief and rehabilitation supplies were still flowing into Guatemala late last month following Central America’s worst earthquake, and attention was turned to rebuilding.

While much of the assistance was provided by governmental and other secular organizations, Christian groups sent millions of dollars worth of aid. That help, distributed by missionaries, agency staff, and volunteer workers, took many forms. Evangelicals were involved in providing communications services, transportation, and specialized medical work in addition to food, tools, blankets, clothes, and building supplies.

The Salvation Army, for instance, had no personnel in Guatemala at the time of the disaster, but a team was on the field within forty-eight hours. At the height of its effort, the Army had eighteen bi-lingual officers there. Among their unique contributions was operation of a hospitality center at the Guatemala City airport. Volunteer relief workers who arrived there were given help in locating the agencies with which they would work.

Another unique service of the Army was establishment of an international locating and message service. Operating ten hours daily from the home of an amateur radio operator in Atlanta, Georgia, the service averaged twelve messages per minute. In Guatemala, personnel receiving the messages assigned volunteers to find the people about whom anxious relatives overseas were inquiring.

World Relief Commission, an arm of the National Association of Evangelicals, held a special meeting during the NAE’s Washington convention and decided to add $153,000 to the $97,000 it had already spent in Guatemala. Following its policy of using evangelical personnel already in the region, the commission’s initial grants went to ten mission organizations for emergency supplies.

In just over two weeks, Medical Assistance Programs (MAP) sent supplies with a fair market value (wholesale cost) of $800,000. The Wheaton-based interdenominational group provided its help to a variety of missions and promised to send all the medical needs of CEPA, the Permanent Evangelical Committee for Aid, until sixty days after the earthquake.

MAP got a boost from evangelist Billy Graham, whose organization gave $50,000 toward the costs of its disaster program in Guatemala. The agency also distributed two planeloads of high protein bread which a Texas baker sent through the Graham organization.

The Southern Baptist Foreign Mission Board appropriated $100,000 for aid. It also recruited medical teams including such specialists as traumatologists and surgeons.

Church World Service, relief arm of the National Council of Churches, sent $500,000 worth of aid last month. CWS is serving as the agent for many denominations in the United States as well as for the World Council of Churches. It has appealed to its supporting agencies for $1 million.

Catholic Relief Services reported that it had sent $600,000 worth of goods in the three weeks after the disaster, including 100 tons of corrugated roofing material.

Guatemalans face not only the task of rebuilding houses, schools, churches, and public buildings, but they also face deeper needs to rebuild families and disrupted institutions. Among the million or more homeless people are at least 3,000 orphans. Efforts to give them adoptive homes outside the country have so far received no encouragement from top Guatemalan officials.

Best-Seller

Angels: God’s Secret Agents, by evangelist Billy Graham, was by far the runaway best-seller during 1975 among current, hardcover, nonfiction books, according to final tabulations released last month. Publisher’s Weekly compiles the bestseller lists on the basis of books sold through regular trade channels. Included in the figures are copies of books issued in 1974 but sold last year. Angels, a Doubleday publication, had sold 810,000 copies by year’s end despite not getting started until October. Sales reached one million in January, according to Doubleday. It is believed to be the first time a best-seller has hit the one-million mark within four months. (The figure includes several hundred thousand copies purchased by the Graham organization for resale.)

Number two, Winning Through Intimidation, was published in mid-1974 and sold 265,000 copies throughout 1975. The leading hardcover fiction book, Ragtime, sold 232,000 copies. (Last year’s nonfiction leader The Total Woman, sold 260,000 hardcover copies in 1975 but is not ranked because it first appeared in late 1973. There are also 2.3 million copies in print in paperback.)

Another religious title (although it claims to be secular) was number three, TM: Discovering Energy and Overcoming Stress, by Harold Bloomfield (Delacorte). Number thirteen was Catherine Marshall’s Something More: In Search of a Deeper Faith (McGraw-Hill).

New Cia Policy

The Central Intelligence Agency announced last month it would no longer recruit missionaries and clergymen for informational purposes. No secret paid or contractual relationship now exists with any American clergyman or missionary, said the CIA, and this policy will continue.

In the past, most of the relatively few CIA-missionary links that did exist were voluntary, but in many of these cases the CIA initiated the contact. At a White House briefing last month for nearly 300 leaders attending the joint convention of the National Association of Evangelicals and the National Religious Broadcasters, government spokesman Michael DuVal said the CIA would no longer initiate contacts. However, said he, the CIA would listen if a missionary or clergyman volunteers information, a practice many mission boards have banned.

Responding to concerns expressed by mission leaders, the spokesman said new CIA director George Bush has taken “firm” steps against any use of missionaries that could compromise the integrity of others.

Religion In Transit

The National Council of Churches communication commission urged broadcasters to develop prime-time programs to inform teen-agers about venereal disease and unwanted pregnancies. It also called for studies to see if radio and TV ads of nonprescription contraceptives do in fact reduce such disease and pregnancies. Meanwhile, widespread radio and TV advertising of contraceptives “is not justified at this time,” it said.

Federal studies show that divorces in the United States topped one million last year, up from 479,000 ten years ago. An estimated 33 per cent of American marriages end in divorce.

Interest in religion is soaring in America’s public high schools. A study by the National Council of Teachers of English revealed that “Bible in Literature” is one of the top ten courses requested by high schoolers. In seven years, for example, the number of Pennsylvania students registered in academic religion courses shot up from 700 to 12,000.

Evangelist Billy Graham canceled plans to hold a rally during the summer Olympics in Montreal. His decision was made in consultation with sixty area churches that invited him. He made it after Lord Killanin, chairman of the International Olympic Committee, noted that Olympic rules ban political and religious meetings at the place and time of the games.

The Supreme Court rejected attempts by the University of Delaware to prevent the celebration of masses by Catholic students in the common-room area of a dormitory. From now on, campus religious groups must be treated like any other student activity and furnished university space. The decision has far-reaching implications for evangelical campus groups across the country.

World Scene

The Bible, or portions of it, appeared for the first time in twenty-nine additional languages last year, according to Bible Society reports. There are now 1,577 languages and dialects in which at least one Bible book has been published—about half the world’s tongues.

Pope Paul named Abbot Basil Hume of a Benedictine abbey in northern England as the ninth Archbishop of Westminster and Catholic primate of England and Wales. He is 52.

Ethiopia’s military rulers removed from office the patriarch of the country’s Orthodox Church, Abuna Theophiles. They charged him with a series of crimes, including misappropriation of relief funds.

The British House of Commons appointed George Thomas, 66, a Methodist lay preacher and Labor Party leader from Wales, as Speaker.

Cardinal Leon Joseph Suenens of Belgium was awarded the Templeton Foundation Prize for Progress in Religion. The first Templeton award in 1973 went to Mother Teresa of Calcutta.

Bishop Mortimer Arias, 52, resigned as head of the Methodist Evangelical Church in Bolivia in order to help prevent schism in the 4,000-member body. Half the members are Aymara Indians who in recent months have been clamoring for decentralization, for a greater role in the life and work of the church, and for more leaders who speak their native language. Restructure reflecting these reforms was voted by 136 delegates at the church’s general assembly. Meanwhile, the missionary presence continues to diminish. Seven years ago there were seventy United Methodist missionaries in Bolivia. Now there are eighteen.

Black theologian Manas Buthelezi has been selected as general secretary of the 500,000 member Evangelical Lutheran Church in South Africa, a black denomination formed in December through a merger of four bodies.

Correspondent James Mitchell reports that some 450 Christian families who fled from Laos and their seventeen pastors have settled down to a new life in central Thailand.

The Dutch government shipped $200,000 worth of food to Lisbon, Portugal, for distribution by the Portuguese Evangelical Alliance to some of the 500,000 refugees from Angola.

Historian-clergyman Michael Nuttall, 41, is the new Anglican bishop of Pretoria, South Africa. He joins two other South Africa bishops who like himself are identified with the charismatic movement. Archbishop Bill Burnett of Cape Town and Bishop Bruce Evans of Port Elizabeth.

Pham Tai Son, a former Scripture Union staffer in South Viet Nam who was educated at London Bible College, reports from a village farm seventy miles from Saigon that churches in the country are still open but that many Christian students must work on farms while schools remain closed.

The government of Kuwait has forbidden the sale of all periodicals that could “damage morals and religion,” according to the French Evangelical Alliance. The decision is directed at both local papers and the foreign press, says a spokesman, and all such offending publications will be impounded.

The Kyodan (United Church of Christ in Japan) reports a membership of about 200,000 in 1,602 congregations, only one-sixth of whom have more than 100 members. Sunday worship attendance averages 45,479, up for the first time since 1967.

The fourteen Dutch delegates who attended the World Council of Churches assembly in Nairobi issued a statement of support to two Russian Orthodox priests who appealed to the WCC on behalf of persecuted believers in the Soviet Union.

Having recently arrived in America on sabbatical from my post in Australia, I have been trying to learn how the natives live. Among other things I have been listening to the radio, and I find this very illuminating.

A sports commentator interested me recently by claiming that in this country over a wide area sport is being ruined by a “win-at-any-price” attitude. He and another announcer began to talk about ice-hockey games in which physical intimidation is a feature of the playing; about a high school coach who had led his basketball team off the court, forfeiting the game rather than risk injury to the players; about golfers who falsify their scores. They gave other examples of “sportsmen” who bent the rules rather than lose.

One of them made the acute observation that people who engage in such tactics are not playing the game they think they are but quite another. Basketball, for example, is a game of grace and beauty with rules devised to bring out play of a certain type. The result is that the gifted athlete finds ample scope for exercising a variety of skills and the spectator for appreciating them. But when a brutal team wins a game by strong physical measures, it has not won a game of basketball so much as destroyed it. It has preferred to destroy the game rather than lose.

We may protest at this. But when we do we are likely to be met with some such retort as, “That’s the way it is today!” We are exhorted to face up to reality.

The complaint of my sporting commentator was that this is precisely what the “win-at-any-price” players and coaches are not doing. They are coming out ahead on the scoreboard by their tactics, but they are not facing up to the reality of what they are doing to sport and to themselves.

This led him into a reference to Scripture. He was reminded of the destruction of Sodom when Abraham pleaded that the city be spared if fifty righteous men could be found in it, if forty-five, if forty, and so on down to ten. He ended by suggesting that we are heading for a situation in which we will not be able to find even the barest minimum of people who know what sport is all about.

I found all this fascinating, not least because it has such a familiar ring. I think it was a great American coach who first said, “Winning is not the most important thing. It’s the only thing.” But Australians have made the sentiment their own. The games we play are for the most part different, but they are marred by the same ugly features, the same “win-at-all-costs” philosophy, the same readiness to use physical strength to excess, the same cynicism about those quaint souls who play games for the fun of it.

And the attitude is surely not confined to our two nations. We read of most unattractive behavior at British soccer matches, and at cycle racing on the continent of Europe. The Olympic Games are once more upon us, but no one any longer expects them to embody the ideals that led to their formation. Modern athletics can be a fierce and hate-filled thing.

The point of all this for a column headed “Current Religious Thought” is that it has its theological aspect, as my friend the commentator saw with his reference to Sodom. Why do people adopt tactics like those I have been deploring? There may be many reasons on the surface, but deep down it is surely because of the truth that theologians have enshrined in the doctrine of original sin. The trouble is not that there has suddenly arisen a new generation of coaches who do not understand sportsmanship. The trouble is that deep down in the heart of every human being there is a tendency to do evil and this is finding an outlet on our sporting fields.

It is not, of course, confined to them. Another piece of Americana that has come to my notice is an article by James Reston in which he wonders why people try to assassinate presidents (and sometimes succeed). He finds himself unhappy with the suggestion that deeds of this kind spring from a few aberrant individuals. He agrees with Edmund Burke that it is not possible to “indict a whole people,” but he does not think that the problem has been solved when that is said.

Reston ranges over a variety of evils and cites a number of opinions. But when he comes to round it all off, he refuses to accept the view that all the tragedies he sees in the national life are no more than “accidents and personal failures.” It is not necessary to “indict a whole people” to see “that something has gone wrong with the common purpose of the nation.”

It would be presumptuous for an outsider to pass judgment on the informed comments of an acute observer from the inside. All the more is this the case when the outsider recognizes that in his own nation there are evil tendencies at work to the point that Reston’s very words apply: “Something has gone wrong with the common purpose of the nation.”

And what shall we say of Lebanon, of Northern Ireland, of Angola? Of Britain and other nations of Western Europe? Or of those Communist nations that neither solve their own problems nor refrain from interfering in the affairs of others? Does not the modern world afford many a striking illustration of man’s inability to order his own life in such a way as to serve his own wellbeing?

The doctrine of original sin is often caricatured and is widely dismissed as quite untenable in a thoughtful age like our own. But I doubt whether any age has offered more widespread illustrations of the truth of the doctrine. We may have our doubts as to the way in which the doctrine has sometimes been formulated, but that does not alter the main point. There is a flaw in human nature, and unless that is recognized there is little room for optimism.

Christians are often accused of pessimism. They are pessimistic where the fatal flaw is unrecognized and where it is expected that man can solve his problems out of his own resources. Sin will always in the end defeat man’s aspirations, and it is only clearsightedness to recognize the fact.

But Christians are also optimistic. They refuse to accept man’s sin as the deciding factor. The love of God is stronger than the sin of man, and in the cross they see God at work, overcoming sin and providing the way of righteousness. So they proclaim the cross, knowing that without it man is lost, knowing also that redeemed man enters into that life which is life indeed.

LEON MORRIS

The death of Kathryn Kuhlman leaves an aching void in the hearts of thousands of those who followed her on television and in her public meetings. She was an unusual and certainly a controversial figure. CT ran an interview we had with her in 1973. She said “I have never healed anyone. I am absolutely dependent upon the power of the Holy Spirit.” I sat in one of her meetings at the First Presbyterian Church in Pittsburgh. Scores of people responded to the invitation to receive Christ. I talked to an Episcopal clergyman who recounted several healings in his family. Miss Kuhlman died weeks after she had open heart surgery. She will not soon be replaced.

A physician friend called from Asheville, North Carolina regarding the Hearst trial. We both agreed that Christians should pray for Patty Hearst’s parents. Theirs has been a lonely, frustrating, and tragic time. Whether Miss Hearst is convicted or pronounced innocent they have some more rough years ahead. Join me in prayer for them and for her.